Loomis Vineyards

March 29, 2011 | Loomis Vineyards

Wine Tasting with the Warriors

March 2011

Loomis Family Vineyards was invited to participate in an exclusive pre-game wine tasting reception held in the VIP lounge at Oracle Arena & hosted by Golden State Warriors' owner Joe Lacob! Smiling for the camera are Jeff Loomis and winemaker Tim Milos (center left), along with a pair of Warriors chearleaders.

Mar 29, 2011 at 2:04 PM

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February 11, 2011 | Loomis Vineyards

Vineyard featured in Metropolitan Home

Every wonder what the vineyard looks like? Metropolitan Home did a feature story on the owner's home – check it out here!

Feb 11, 2011 at 3:15 PM

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September 1, 2010 | Loomis Vineyards

Adam Japko: "Loomis Vineyards Achieves Early Statement of Style"

On his blog at Wine-Zag.com, Adam Japko gives Air, Snow, and Ember glowing reviews:

I like discovering young wineries working their own infant vineyards as wine makers unveil unique styling and a reliance on their own maturing vines that are not yet naturally producing lower yields with more intense and concentrated fruit. While it can take years to release the untold treasures embodied in newly planted land, it is absolutely possible to capture and present a house style early on. When those style characteristics include restraint, flavor purity, solid acidity, consistency, and honest varietal interpretation, I stand at attention as I did tasting through the recent releases from Loomis Family Vineyards.

During a recent dinner at a favorite BYOB spot, I had our group taste through the portfolio of one remarkable rosé, a Grenache Blanc, and a red Rhone varietal blend. The names of these wines are Air, Snow, and Ember respectively and the blended varietals include Grenache Blanc and Viognier for Snow, and Grenache Noir, Syrah, Mourvedre, and Counoise in Air and Ember. With this first release of Ember, second vintage of Snow, and the third production of the rosé, Loomis Vineyards confirmed a house style that delivers old world varietal representation, doses of acidity that make the wines excellent food complements, serious concentration without anything resembling over-ripeness, and complex aromatics that present themselves over time in the glass. For California jammy fruit fans, beware; Loomis produces anything but fat, soft, round California wines. They are special exceptions to the Napa fruit parade, offering bright, clean and pure old world flavors that are chasing their own identity that can only be found in their own patch of earth in this southeast corner of Napa Valley. I wrote about Loomis Family Vineyards enthusiastically last year after swooning over their first Grenache Blanc release. Here are my notes on the current release:

2009 Air: Rich, dark pink, peach skin coloring. Light and elegant attack with steely, stone-like flavors. A nose of melon rind, stewed strawberries, and muted floral aromas are present. The mouth feel is surprisingly rich and full considering the restrained elegance at first blush, and it is finished with a big streak of well married acidity. A very long finish lets this amalgamation of flavor and textures persist for a very long time. It is absolutely the most compelling wine of the three for drinking now. This is a very, very special old world style rosé from California.

2009 Snow: Bright, racy citrus and melon on the nose with a medium richness, bracing acidity, and long finish. The wine is interesting because it has excellent construction and balance beginning to end, but the aromatics and flavor dimensions are muted. It is second best to last year’s release, and I wonder if the wine will eventually open up (it has plenty of time ahead of itself for safe cellaring) and show the multitude of aromas and flavor components found in last year’s version of this wine. I am going to wait to see how this wine progresses over the next couple of years, and drink one more bottle nearer term since it serves as an excellent foil to rich finny and shellfish as is.

2008 Ember: A fair amount of alcohol and jam on the nose. Serious pepper spice. These aromatics hint at a massive glass of wine and I wondered if I was about to witness a violation of the restraint and balance I was falling for in these wines. I was not disappointed and the wine coated our palates with a silky feel, again supported with the Loomis tell-tale dose of acidity and long finish. The wine does have a big tannic bite and I bet that will melt away nicely over the next ten years and reveal the velvet fruit core as the wine becomes more fit to drink. I would choose to cellar this wine for at least three years. I like this wine for its construction and elegance that hint at future greatness.

I strongly recommend these wines. especially the rosé for immediate pleasure. You can buy them direct from Loomis Family Vineyards here. The program is young, but the style definition is classic and exciting.

Sep 1, 2010 at 10:02 AM

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August 24, 2010 | Loomis Vineyards

Tannins, Structure, and California Wines

Steve Heimoff, Chief Editor of Wine Enthusiast, recently blogged about the lack of structure in California wines. Wine expert Adam Japko commented that LVF's "well structured and balanced" wines utterly defied this trend. A worthy read on an interesting topic.

From Steve Heimoff's blog:

Structure, or lack thereof: California’s bogeyman

My old friend David was complaining about wine yesterday. He doesn’t know much about it, despite my mentoring him for all these years, but he does know he’s looking for, and missing, “tannins.”

What does David mean when he talks about “tannins”?

He said he wants to feel something solid in his mouth when he sips a wine. Something grippy, structural. I told him that, if he didn’t mind spending $60 or $80 a bottle, there were some Barolos and Barbarescos I could recommend which would fulfill his tannin quotient. He replied that he buys Super-Tuscans, but even they seem too soft for him.

This set me to thinking. I probably use the word “soft” in my wine reviews more than any other adjective, except, possibly, for “dry.” (Maybe “fruity,” also.) Sometimes when I call a wine soft, it’s a compliment. But most of the time, it’s not. For example, I called an Esser 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon soft, but then I explained it “lacks structure, which makes it taste too sweet.” Sometimes, a wine without firm tannins and at least some decent acidity will taste sweet even it it’s technically dry.

This is the problem with so many California red wines. They’re too soft. That makes many of them taste alike, even when they’re made from varieties as different as Petite Sirah, Mourvedre, Syrah, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Zinfandel. We inherited from Old Europe the concept that different grape varieties should and do taste differently from each other. They’re grown in distinctive places to which they’re adapted their dna to thrive, and they express distinct qualities. I don’t suppose it has been easy, all these centuries, to mistake a Beaune Pinot Noir with a Saint-Estephe Cabernet Sauvignon (despite Harry Waugh’s wry “not since lunch” reply when asked if he’d ever confused Burgundy and Bordeaux).

Click here to continue reading on Steve's blog.

Wine expert Adam Japko's response:

Thanks for raising the need to consider context and peer groups when writing or interpreting reviews. Agreed on the redundancy of adjectives working across a wide span of varietals. and it bugs me when I notice it in my writing or when I read them in others… sometimes it haunts review relevance, but tucking it back into the context of the varietal under discussion makes things feel better.

Also, the light you are shining on a sea of interchangeable jammy California varietals is something I thought about when I tasted a newly released Loomis Family Vineyards serious Rhone fruit Rose and a clean but exotic Grenache Blanc this weekend. While both reflect a house style of gripping acidity that eliminates any easy perception of soft roundness on the palate, I thought to myself that most jam fans would not like these well structured and balanced wines even though I, and probably your buddy David, would knock people over to get another glass. Maybe it is good to be weaned on so many soft wines so we can understand a more interesting winemaking approach when it presents itself.

Aug 24, 2010 at 11:35 AM

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September 2, 2009 | Loomis Vineyards